PR 6011 
.R26 

J78 
1918 

C ° PV [ THE JUDGEMENT 
OF VALHALLA 



BY 

GILBERT FRANKAU 



THE JUDGEMENT 
OF VALHALLA 



BY 

GILBERT FRANKAU 



NEW YORK 
FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY 

1918 



\N A& 



Copyright, 1918 
Gilbert Frankau 



A 11 rights reserved 



MAY 10 1918 
©CI.A496526 



II M k 






The Judgement of Valhalla 

By GILBERT FRANKAU 



THE DESERTER 

"I'm sorry I done it, Major." 

We bandaged the livid face ; 

And led him out, ere the wan sun rose, 

To die his death of disgrace. 

The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge ; 
The rifles steadied to rest, 
As cold stock nestled at colder cheek 
And foresight lined on the breast. 

"Fire!" called the Sergeant-Major. 
The muzzles flamed as he spoke : 
And the shameless soul of a nameless man 
Went up in the cordite-smoke. 



T3] 



THE EYE AND THE TRUTH 

Up from the fret of the earth-world, through 
the Seven Circles of Flame, 

With the seven holes in Its tunic for sign of 
the death-in-shame, 

To the little gate of Valhalla the coward- 
spirit came. 

Cold, It crouched in the man-strong wind that 

sweeps Valhalla's floor; 
Weak, It pawed and scratched on the wood; 

and howled, like a dog, at the Door 
Which is shut to the souls who are sped in 

shame, for ever and evermore : 

For It snuffed the Meat of the Banquet- 
boards where the Threefold Killers sit, 

Where the Free Beer foams to the tankard- 
rim, and the Endless Smokes are lit. . . . 

And It saw the Naked Eye come out above 
the lintel-slit. 

And now It quailed at Naked Eye which 

judges the naked dead; 
And now It snarled at Naked Truth that 

broodeth overhead; 
And now It looked to the earth below where 

the gun-flames flickered red. 



[4] 



It muttered words It had learned on earth, 

the words of a black-coat priest 
Who had bade It pray to a pulpit god — but 

ever Eye's Wrath increased; 
And It knew that Its words were empty 

words, and It whined like a homeless 

beast : 

Till, black above the lintel-slit, the Naked Eye 

went out; 
Till, loud across the Killer-Feasts, It heard 

the Killer-Shout— 
The three-fold song of them that slew, and 

died . . . and had no doubt. 



[5] 



THE SONG OF THE RED-EDGED STEEL 

Below your black priest's heaven, 

Above his tinselled hell, 
Beyond the Circles Seven, 

The Red-Steel Killers dwell — 
The men who drave, to blade-ring home, be- 
hind the marching shell. 

We knew not good nor evil, 
Save only right of blade ; 
Yet neither god nor devil 

Could hold us from our trade, 
When once we watched the barrage lift, and 
splendidly afraid 

Came scrambling out of cover, 

And staggered up the hill. . . . 
The bullets whistled over; 
Our sudden dead lay still ; 
And the mad machine-gun chatter drove us 
fighting-wild to kill. 

Then the death-light lit our faces, 
And the death-mist floated red 
O'er the crimson cratered places 
Where his outposts crouched in 
dread. . . . 
And we stabbed or clubbed them as they 
crouched ; and shot them as they fled ; 

[6] 



And floundered, torn and bleeding, 
Over trenches, through the wire, 
With the shrapnel-barrage leading 
To the prey of our desire — 
To the men who rose to meet us from the 
blood-soaked battle-mire ; 

Met them ; gave and asked no quarter ; 

But, where we saw the Gray, 
Plunged the edged steel of slaughter, 
Stabbed home, and wrenched away. . . . 
Till red wrists tired of killing- work, and none 
were left to slay. 

Now — while his fresh battalions 

Moved up to the attack — 
Screaming like angry stallions, 
His shells came charging back, 
And stamped the ground with thunder-hooves 
and pawed it spouting-black 

And breathed down poison-stenches 

Upon us, leaping past. . . . 
Panting, we turned his trenches ; 
And heard — each time we cast 
From parapet to parados — the scything bul- 
let-blast. 

Till the whistle told his coming ; 
Till we flung away the pick, 

[7] 



Heard our Lewis guns' crazed drumming, 
Grabbed our rifles, sighted quick, 
Fired . . . and watched his wounded 
writhing back from where his dead 
lay thick. 

So we laboured — while we lasted : 

Soaked in rain or parched in sun; 
Bullet-riddled ; fire-blasted ; 
Poisoned : fodder for the gun : 
So we perished, and our bodies rotted in the 
ground they won. 

It heard the song of the First of the Dead, as 

It couched by the lintel-post ; 
And the coward-soul would have given Its 

soul to be back with the Red-Steel 

host. . . . 
But Eye peered down ; and It quailed at the 

Eye ; and Naked Truth said : "Lost." 

And Eye went out. But It might not move ; 

for, droned in the dark, It heard 
The Second Song of the Killer-men — word 

upon awful word 
Cleaving the void with a shrill, keen sound 

like the wings of a pouncing bird. 



[8] 



THE SONG OF THE CRASHING WING 

Higher than tinselled heaven, 
Lower than angels dare, 
Loop to the fray, swoop on their prey, 
The Killers of the Air. 

We scorned the Galilean, 
We mocked at Kingdom-Come : 
The old gods knew our paean — 
Our dawn-loud engine-hum : 

The old red gods of slaughter, 
The gods before the Jew ! 
We heard their cruel laughter, 
Shrill round us, as we flew: 

When, deaf to earth and pity, 
Blind to the guns beneath, 
We loosed upon the city 

Our downward-plunging death. 

The Sun-God watched our flighting ; 
No Christian priest could tame 
Our deathly stuttered fighting : — 
The whirled drum, spitting flame ; 

The roar of blades behind her ; 
The banking plane up-tossed ; 
The swerve that sought to blind her ; 
Masked faces, glimpsed and lost ; 

[9] 



The joy-stick wrenched to guide her ; 
The swift and saving zoom, 
What time the shape beside her 
Went spinning to its doom. 

No angel-wings might follow 
Where, poised behind the fray, 
We spied our Lord Apollo 

Stoop down to mark his prey — 

The hidden counter-forces; 
The guns upon the road ; 
The tethered transport-horses, 
Stampeding, as we showed — 

Dun hawks of death, loud-roaring — 
A moment to their eyes : 
And slew; and passed far-soaring; 
And dwindled up the skies. 

But e'en Apollo's pinions 
Had faltered where we ran, 
Low through his veiled dominions, 
To lead the charging van ! 

The tree-tops slathered under; 
The Red-Steel Killers knew, 
Hard overhead, the thunder 
And backwash of her screw ; 

The blurred clouds raced above her ; 
The blurred fields streaked below, 

[10] 



Where waited, crouched to cover, 
The foremost of our foe ; 

Banking, we saw his furrows 
Leap at us, open wide : 
Hell-raked the man-packed burrows; 
And crashed — and crashing, died. 

It heard the song of the Dead in Air, as It 
huddled against the gate ; 

And once again the Eye peered down — red- 
rimmed with scorn and hate 

For the shameless soul of the nameless one 
who had neither foe nor mate. 

And Eye was shut. But Naked Truth bent 

down to mock the Thing : — 
"Thou hast heard the Song of the Red-edged 

Steel, and the Song of the Crashing 

Wing: 
Shall the word of a black-coat priest avail at 

Valhalla's harvesting? 

Shalt thou pass free to the Seven Halls — 
whose life in shame was sped?" 

And Truth was dumb. But the brooding word 
still echoed overhead, 

As roaring down the void outburst the last 
loud song of the dead. 



[ll] 



THE SONG OF THE GUNNER-DEAD 

In Thor's own red Valhalla, 
Which priest may not unbar; 
But only Naked Truth and Eye, 
Last arbiters of War; 
Feast, by stark right of courage, 
The Killers from Afar. 

We put no trust in heaven, 
We had no fear of hell ; 
But lined, and ranged, and timed to clock, 
Our barrage-curtains fell, 
When guns gave tongue and breech-blocks 

swung 
And palms rammed home the shell. 

The Red-Steel ranks edged forward, 
And vanished in our smoke ; 
Back from his churning craters, 
The Gray Man reeled and broke ; 
While, fast as sweat could lay and set, 
Our rocking muzzles spoke. 

We blew him from the village ; 

We chased him through the wood : 
Till, tiny on the crest-line 

Where once his trenches stood, 

We watched the wag of sending flag 
That told our work was good: 

[12] 



Till, red behind the branches, 
The death-sun sank to blood ; 
And the Red-Steel Killers rested. . . . 
But we, by swamp and flood, 

Through mirk and night — his shells for 

light- 
Blaspheming, choked with mud, 

Roped to the tilting axles, 
Man-handled up the crest ; 
And wrenched our plunging gun-teams 
Foam-flecked from jowl to breast, 
Downwards, and on, where trench-lights 
shone — 
For we, we might not rest ! 

Shell-deafened ; soaked and sleepless ; 

Short-handed; under fire; 

Days upon nights unending, 

We wrought, and dared not tire — 

With whip and bit from dump to pit, 

From pit to trench with wire. 

The Killers in the Open, 

The Killers down the Wind, 
They saw the Gray Man eye to eye — 
But we, we fought him blind, 

Nor knew whence came the screaming 
flame 

That killed us, miles behind. 

[13] 



Yet, when the triple rockets 

Flew skyward, blazed and paled, 
For sign the lines were broken ; 

When the Red Steel naught availed ; 

When, through the smoke, on shield and 

spoke 
His rifle bullets hailed ; 

When we waited, dazed and hopeless, 

Till the layer's eye could trace 

Helmets, bobbing just above us 

Like mad jockeys in a race. . . . 
Then — loaded, laid, and unafraid, 

We met him face to face ; 

Jerked the trigger ; felt the trunnions 
Rock and quiver ; saw the flail 

Of our zero-fuses blast him ; 
Saw his gapping ranks turn tail ; 

Heard the charging-cheer behind us . . . 
And dropped dead across the trail. 



[14] 



VALHALLA'S VERDICT 

It heard the Song of the Gunner-Dead die out 

to a sullen roar: 
But Naked Truth said never a word ; and Eye 

peered down no more. 
For Eye had seen; and Truth had judged 

. . . and It might not pass the Door ! 

And now, like a dog in the dark, It shrank 
from the voice of a man It knew : — 

"There are empty seats at the Banquet-board, 
but there's never a seat for you ; 

For they will not drink with a coward soul, 
the stark red men who slew. 

There's meat and to spare, at the Killer- 
Feasts where Thor's swung hammer 
twirls ; 

There's beer and enough, in the Free Canteen 
where the Endless Smoke upcurls ; 

There are lips and lips, for the Killer-Men, in 
the Hall of the Dancing-Girls. 

There's a place for any that passes clean — 
but for you there's enver a place : 

The Endless Smoke would blacken your lips, 
and the Girls would spit in your face; 

And the Beer and the Meat go sour on your 
guts — for you died the death of disgrace. 

[15] 



We were pals on earth: but by God's brave 
Son and the bomb that I reached too late, 

I damn the day and I blast the hour when 
first I called you mate ; 

And Fd sell my soul for one of my feet, to 
hack you from the gate — 

To hack you hence to the lukewarm hells that 

the priest-made ovens heat, 
Or the faked-pearl heaven of pulpit gods, 

where the sheep-faced angels bleat 
And the halo's rim is as hard to the head as 

the gilded floor to the feet." 



It heard the stumps of Its one-time mate go 

waddling back to the Feast. 
And, once and again, It whined for the Meat ; 

ere It slunk, like a tongue-lashed beast, 
To the tinselled heaven of pulpit gods and the 

tinselled hell of their priest. 



[16] 



Ai 



imee 



WIFE AND COUNTRY 

Dear, let me thank you for this : 

That you made me remember, in fight, 

England — all mine at your kiss, 

At the touch of your hands in the night 
England — your giving's delight. 



[17] 



MOTHER AND MATE 

Lightly she slept, that splendid mother mine 
Who faced death, undismayed, two hopeless 

years . . . 
("Think of me sometimes, son, but not with 

tears 
Lest my soul grieve," she writes. Oh, this 

divine 
Unselfishness!) . . . 

Her favourite print smiled down — 
The stippled Cupid, Bartolozzi-brown — 
Upon my sorrow. Fire-gleams, fitful, played 
Among her playthings — Toby mugs and 

jade. . . . 

And then I dreamed that — suddenly, 

strangely clear — 
A voice I knew not, faltered at my ear : 
"Courage!" . ■. . Your own dear voice, 

loved since, and known! 

And now that she sleeps well, come times her 

voice 
Whispers in day-dreams: ''Courage, son! 

Rejoice 
That, leaving you, I left you not alone." 

[18] 



MEETING 

I came from the City of Fear, 

From the scarred brown land of pain, 

Back into life again . . . 

And I thought, as the leave-boat rolled 

Under the veering stars — 

Wind a-shriek in her spars — 

Shivering there, and cold, 

Of music, of warmth, and of wine — 

To be mine 

For a whole short week . . . 

And I thought, adrowse in the train, 

Of London, suddenly near; 

And of how — small doubt — I should find 

There, as of old, 

Some woman — foolishly kind: 

Fingers to hold, 

A cheek, 

A mouth to kiss — and forget, 

Forget in a little while, 

Forget 

When I came again 

To the scarred brown land of pain, 

To the sodden things and the vile, 

And the tedious battle-fret. 

My dear, 

I cannot forget! 

[19] 



Not even here 

In this City of Fear. 

I remember the poise of your head, 
And your look, and the words you said 
When we met, 

And the waxen bloom at your breast, 
And the sable fur that caressed 
Your smooth white wrists, and your 

hands . . . 
Remember them yet, 
Here 

In the desolate lands ; 
Remember your shy 
Strange air, 
And growing aware — 

I, 

Who had reckoned love 

Man's toy for an hour — 

Of love's hidden power: 

A thrill 

That moved me to touch and adore 

Some intimate thing that you wore — 

A glove, 

Or the flower 

A-glow at your breast, 

The frill 

Of fur that circled your wrist . . . 

These, had my hands caressed ; 

[20] 



These, not you, had I kissed — 

I, 

Who had thought love's fires 
Only desires. 

Dear, 

That hidden power thrills in me yet. 

There is never one hour — 

Not even here 

In this City of Fear — 

When I quite forget. 



[21] 



MUSIC AND WINE 

When the ink has dried on the pen, 
When the sword returns to its sheath; 
When the world of women and men, 
And the waters around and beneath, 
Char and shrivel and burn — 
What will God give in return ? . . . 
Has He better to offer in heaven above 
Than wine and music, laughter and love? 

Laughter, music and wine, 

The promise of love in your eyes . . . 

Sleeping, I dream them mine ; 

Waking, my spirit cries — 

Here in the mud and the rain — 

"God, give me London again ! 
I would lose all earth and the heavens above 
For just one banquet of laughter and love." 

When my flesh returns to its earth, 

When my pen is dust as my sword ; 

If one thing I wrought find worth 

In the eyes of our kindly Lord, 

I will only ask of His grace 

That He grant us a lowly place 
Where his warriors toast Him, in heaven 

above, 
With wine and music, laughter and love. 

[22] 



THE GAMBLE 

If man backs horses, plays cards or dice, 

Or bets on an ivory ball, 
He knows the rules, and he reckons the 
price — 
Be it one half-crown, or his all. 
(And it isn't sense, and it isn't pluck, 
To double the stakes when you're out of 
luck!) 

If he plays — with his life for a limit — here, 

It's an even-money game: 
He can lay on the Red — which is Conquered 
Fear, 
Or the Black — which is Utter Shame. 
(And there isn't much choice between Reds 

and Blacks, 
For Death throws "zero" whichever he 
backs.) 

So that whether man plays for the red gold's 
wealth 

Where the little ball clicks and spins, 
Or hazards his life in the black night's stealth 

When machine-gun fire begins — 
It's a limited gamble ; and each of us knows 
What he stands to lose ere the tables close. 

But woman's gamble — (there's only one: 
And it takes some pluck to play, 

[23] 



When the rules are broke ere the game's 
begun ; 
When, lose or win, you must pay!) — 
Is a double wager on human kind, 
A limitless risk — and she goes it blind. 

For she stakes, at love, on a single throw, 
Pride, Honour, Scruples and Fears, 

And dreams no lover can hope to know, 
And the gold of the after-years. 

(And all for a man ; and there's no man lives 

Who is worth the odds that a woman gives.) 

So that since you hazarded this for me 

On the day love's die was cast, 
I'll love you — gambler! — while "fours" beat 
three ; 

And I'll lay on our love to last, 
So long as a man will wager a price 
On a horse or a card or the ball or the dice. 



[24] 



NINON AND ROSES 

Here, in a land where hardly a rose is, 
Silkiest blossoms of broidered flowers 

Brush my cheek as each tired eye closes, 
Haunt my sleep through the desolate hours. 

Roses never of nature's making, 
Roses loved for a rose-red night, 

Roses visioned at dawn-light's breaking 
Veiling a bosom as roses white! 

Why does the ghost of you linger and stay 
with me — 
Ghost of the rose-buds that perfumed our 
bed, 
Ghost of a rose-girl who blossomed to play 
with me — 
Here in a land where the roses are dead? 

Day-time and night-time the death-flower 
blazes, 
Saffron at gun-lip and orange and red, 
Here where June's rose-tree lies shattered as 
May's is, 
Here where I dream of the nights that are 
dead — 

Nights that were sweet with the scent and 
the touch of you, 

[25] 



Rose-girl in ninon with buds at your 
breast, 
Rose-girl who promised and granted so much 
of you, 
All that was tender and all that was best. 

Growl of the guns cannot shatter the dream 
of you, 
Banish the thought of one exquisite hour, 
Or the scent of your hair in the dawn, or the 
gleam of you 
White as white roses through roses a- 
flower. 



[26] 



PARTING 

Times more than once, all ways about the 
world, 
Have I clasped hands; waved sorrowful 
good-bye ; 
Watched far cliffs fading, till my sea-wake 
swirled 
To mingle bluely with a landless sky: 
Then — even as the sea-drowned cliffs be- 
hind — 
Felt sorrow drowning into memory; 
And heard, in every thrill of every wind, 
New voices welcoming across the sea. 

Until it seemed nor land nor love had power 

To hold my heart in any firm duress : 
Grieving, I sorrowed but a little hour ; 

Loving, I knew desire's sure faithfulness: 
Until, by many a love dissatisfied, 

Of each mistrustful and to each untrue, 
I found — as one who, having long denied, 

Finds faith at last — this greater Love, in 
you. 

Parting? We are not parted, woman mine ! 
Though hands have clasped, though lips 
have kissed good-bye; 
Though towns glide past, and fields, and fields 
of brine — 

[27] 



My body takes the warrior- way, not I. 
I am still with you ; you, with me ; one heart ; 

One equal union, soul to certain soul : 
Time cannot sever us, nor sorrow part, 

Nor any sea, who keep our vision whole. 

How can I grieve, who know your spirit near ; 

Who watch with newly understanding eyes 

This England of your giving, newly dear, 

Sink where my sea-wake swirls to darkling 

skies ? 

Lilac, her cliffs have faded into mist. . . . 

Yet still I hold them white in memory, 
Feeling, against these lips your lips have 
kissed, 
The home-wind thrilling down an English 
sea. 



[28] 



The Other Side 



THE OTHER SIDE 

Just got your letter and the poems. Thanks. 
You always were a brainy sort of chap : 
Though pretty useless as a subaltern — 
Too much imagination, not enough 
Of that rare quality, sound commonsense 
And so you've managed to get on the Staff : 
Influence, I suppose : a Captain, too ! 
How do tabs suit you? Are they blue or 
green ? 

About your book;. I've read it carefully, 
So has Macfaddyen (you remember him, 
The light-haired chap who joined us after 

Loos?) ; 
And candidly, we don't think much of it. 
The piece about the horses isn't bad ; 
But all the rest, excuse the word, are tripe — 
The same old tripe we've read a thousand 

times. 

My grief, but we're fed up to the back-teeth 
With war-books, war-verse, all the eye-wash 

stuff 
That seems to please the idiots at home. 

[29] 



You know the kind of thing, or used to know : 
"Heroes who laugh while Fritz is strafing 

them"— 
(I don't remember that you found it fun, 
The day they shelled us out of Blouwpoort 

Farm!) 
"After the fight. Our cheery wounded. Note 
The smile of victory : it won't come off" — 
(Of course they smile; so'd you, if you'd 

escaped, 
And saw three months of hospital ahead. . . . 
They don't smile, much, when they're shipped 

back to France!) 
"Out for the Great Adventure" — (twenty- 
five 
Fat, smirking wasters in some O.T.C., 
Who just avoided the Conscription Act!) 
"A strenuous woman-worker for the Cause" — 
(Miss Trixie Toogood of the Gaiety, 
Who helped to pauperize a few Belgiques 
In the great cause of self-advertisement!) . . . 

Lord knows, the newspapers are bad enough ; 
But they've got some excuse — the censor- 
ship — 
Helping to keep their readers' spirits up) — 
Giving the public what it wants: (besides, 
One mustn't blame the press, the press has 
done 

[SO] 



More than its share to help us win this war 

More than some other people I could name) : 
But what's the good of war-books, if they fail 
To give civilian-readers an idea 
Of what life is like in the firing-line? . . 

You might have done that much ; from you, 

at least, 
I thought we'd get an inkling of the truth. 
But no ; you rant and rattle, beat your drum, 
And blow your two-penny trumpet like the 

rest: 
"Red battle's glory," "honour's utmost task," 
"Gay jesting faces of undaunted boys," . . . 
The same old Boys'-Own-Paper balderdash ! 
Mind you, I don't deny that they exist, 
These abstract virtues which you gas about — 
(We shouldn't stop out here long, other- 
wise!) — 
Honour and humour, and that sort of thing; 
(Though heaven knows where you found the 

glory-touch, 
Unless you picked it up at G.H.Q.) ; 
But if you'd commonsense, you'd understand 
That humour's just the Saxon cloak for fear, 
Our English substitute for "Vive la France," 
Or else a trick to keep the folk at home 
From being scared to death — as we are 
scared ; 

[31] 



That honour . . . damn it, honour's the 

one thing 
No soldier yaps about, except of course 
A soldier-poet — three-and-sixpence net. 

Honest to God, it makes me sick and tired 
To think that you, who lived a year with us, 
Should be content to write such tommy-rot. 
I feel as though Fd sent a runner back 
With news that we were being strafed like 

Hell . . . 
And he'd reported : "Everything 0. K." 
Something's the matter : either you can't see, 
Or else you see, and cannot write — that's 

worse. 

Hang it, you can't have clean forgotten things 
You went to bed with, woke with, smelt and 

felt, 
All those long months of boredom streaked 

with fear: 
Mud, cold, fatigue, sweat, nerve-strain, sleep- 
lessness, 
And men's excreta viscid in the rain, 
And stiff -legged horses lying by the road, 
Their bloated bellies shimmering, green with 
flies . . . 

Have you forgotten? you who dine to-night 
In comfort at the Carlton or Savoy. 

[32] 



(Lord, but I'd like a dart at that myself— 
Oysters, crime something, sole vin blanc, a 

bird, 
And one cold bottle of the very best — 
A girl to share it : afterwards, a show — 
Lee White and Alfred Lester, Nelson Keys ; 
Supper to follow. 

. . . Our Brigade's in rest — 
The usual farm. I've got the only bed. 
The men are fairly comfy — three good barns. 
Thank God, they didn't have to bivouac 
After this last month in the Salient.) . . . 

You have forgotten ; or you couldn't write 
This sort of stuff — all cant, no guts in it, 
Hardly a single picture true to life. 

Well, here's a picture for you : Montauban— 
Last year — the flattened village on our left — 
On our right flank, the razed Briqueterie, 
Their five-nines pounding bits to dustier 

bits — 
Behind, a cratered slope, with batteries 
Crashing and flashing, violet in the dusk, 
And prematuring every now and then — 
In front, the ragged Bois de Bernafay, 
Bosche whizz-bangs bursting white among its 

trees. 

[33] 



You had been doing F.O.O. that day; 
(The Staff knows why we had an F.O.O. : 
One couldn't flag- wag through Trones Wood ; 

the wires 
Went down as fast as one could put them up ; 
And messages by runner took three hours.) 
I got the wind up rather : you were late, 
And they'd been shelling like the very deuce. 
However, back you came. I see you now, 
Staggering into "mess" — a broken trench, 
Two chalk-walls roofed with corrugated iron, 
And, round the traverse, Driver Noakes's 

stove 
Stinking and smoking while we ate our grub. 
Your face was blue-white, streaked with dirt ; 

your eyes 
Had shrunk into your head, as though afraid 
To watch more horrors ; you were sodden-wet 
With greasy coal-black mud — and other 

things. 
Sweating and shivering, speechless, there 

you stood. 
I gave you whisky, made you talk. You said : 
"Major, another signaller's been killed." 
"Who?" 

"Gunner Andrews, blast them. 

my Christ! 

[34] 



His head — split open — when his brains oozed 

out, 
They looked like -bloody sweetbreads, in the 

muck." 

And you're the chap who writes this clap- 
trap verse ! 

Lord, if I'd half your brains, I'd write a 

book: 
None of your sentimental platitudes, 
But something real, vital ; that should strip 
The glamour from this outrage we call war, 
Shewing it naked, hideous, stupid, vile — 
One vast abomination. So that they 
Who, coming after, till the ransomed fields 
Where our lean corpses rotted in the ooze, 
Reading my written words, should under- 
stand 
This stark stupendous horror, visualize 
The unutterable foulness of it all. . . . 
I'd shew them, not your glamourous "glorious 

game," 
Which men play "jesting" "for their hon- 
our's sake" — 
(A kind of Military Tournament, 
With just a hint of danger — bound in 

cloth!) — 
But War, — as war is now, and always was : 
[35] 



A dirty, loathsome, servile murder-job: — 
Men, lousy, sleepless, ulcerous, afraid, 
Toiling their hearts out in the pulling slime 
That wrenches gum-boot down from bleeding 

heel 
And cakes in itching arm-pits, navel, ears : 
Men stunned to brainlessness, and gibbering : 
Men driving men to death and worse than 

death : 
Men maimed and blinded: men against ma- 
chines — 
Flesh versus iron, concrete, flame and wire : 
Men choking out their souls in poison-gas : 
Men squelched into the slime by trampling 

feet: 
Men, disembowelled by guns five miles away, 
Cursing, with their last breath, the living 

God 
Because he made them, in His image, men. . . . 
So — were your talent mine — I'd write of war 
For those who, coming after, know it not. 

And if posterity should ask of me 

What high, what base emotions keyed weak 

flesh 
To face such torments, I would answer: 

"You! 
Not for themselves, daughters, grandsons, 

sons, 

[36] 



Your tortured forebears wrought this mir- 
acle; 
Not for themselves, accomplished utterly 
This loathliest task of murderous servitude ; 
But just because they realized that thus, 
And only thus, by sacrifice, might they 
Secure a world worth living in — for you" . . . 

Good-night, my soldier-poet. Dormez Men! 



[37] 



"One of Them" 

Being in Some Respects a Sequel to "One of Us" 

I. 

Wherein the bard — released from War's 

confusions — 
Preludes with egotistical allusions. 

Six years ago — or is it six-and-twenty ? 
(How vast the gulf from those ecstatic 
days ! ) — 
When the whole earth snored on in slothful 
plenty 
(Tho' poets cashed small pittance for 
their lays) ; 
When war appeared less real than G. A. 
Henty, 
And Oxo's snaky signs were yet ablaze ; 
When all seemed peaceful as the press of 

Cadbury, 
And no one dreamed of bombs, or bet a 
Bradbury ; 

Or e'er stern Mars had roped us in his 
tether, 
Ere British guns had thundered at Le 
Cateau : 
We fitted out — my Muse and I together — 
And launched adown the galley-slips of 
Chatto 

[38] 



A barque of verse, full-rigged for halcyon 
weather, 
Which many a critic judged to take the 
gateau: 
(Though some there were, high pundits of 

disparity, 
Who wept at our unscholarly vulgarity) . 

We have sailed far since then ; crossed our 
horizon ; 
Published our loves and travels in a 
novel 
(A tale, men say, that Peckham's flapper 
cries on, 
So that both Boots and Smith's before us 
grovel) ; 
And eaten ration bully-beef — with flies on ; 
And sheltered gratefully in many a 
hovel, 
What time we sang of guns and gore and 

trenches — 
Instead of oysters, tango-teas and wenches. 

For times have changed since we wrote 
"One of Us" : 
Et nos mutamus — more or less — in Mis. 
Muse finds herself in urbe somewhat rus; 

And I — if I disport with Amaryllis — 
Where once my motor flashed, prefer a 
'bus; 

[39] 



And shuddering note how vast the sup- 
per-bill is; 
And signing, sigh in secret for the calm, 
Chaste, cheap seclusion of my Chiltern farm. 

Yes, Muse and I are tired, and super- 
serious : 
Her damask cheek is lined a bit, and 
wrinkled. 
We are grown old, and London's late nights 
weary us: 
While the gold wine that erst in ice-pail 
tinkled, 
Her doctor finds extremely deleterious ; 
And mine forbids me red lips, passion- 
crinkled : 
So now we cultivate domestic habits 
Amongst our pigs, our poultry, and our rab- 
bits. 

Yet sometimes, as we trench our stubborn 
soil, 
Or feed our sows, or strow the peat- 
moss litter, 
Or set the morrow's chicken-mash to boil, 
Or wander out where our young turkeys 
twitter, 
Or read by mellow candle-light — since oil 
Is dear and scarce ; or talk — a little bitter 
[40] 



Because we find that Food Control Com- 
mittees 
Are all composed of men brought up in cities ; 

Sometimes, in this five-acre paradise 
Whither my nerve-racked spirit fled the 
battle 
Deferring to sound Harley Street ad- 
vice — 
A silver badge its only martial chattel), 
I hear a voice, loud as the market price 
That butchers bid for Rhondda's missing 
cattle, 
Voice of my Muse, still vibrant with old pas- 
sion, 
Telling how poetry is now the fashion. 

"Look you," she cries, "the Wheels are turn- 
ing, turning. 
Though Pegasus long since wore out his 
pinions, 
Somehow his shod hooves keep the bread- 
mills churning. 
Shrill, night and day, sing Marsh Geor- 
gian minions: 
Each sinking sun sets some new Noyes a- 
burning, 
Each rising moon reveals fresh hordes 
of Binyons ; 

[41] 



Who batten fat on unsuspecting editors, 
And — unlike you — contrive to pay their cred- 
itors. 

"Poet, forsooth ! You agricultural brute ! 
Have you no soul above the weight of 
porkers ? 
Was it for this I hearkened to your suit, 
Gave you my metres and my rhymes — 
some, corkers? 
Up, Gilbert ! rummage out your rusty lute : 
Polish it blacker than your black Mi- 
norcas : 
And let its notes once more, in refluent 

stanzas, 
Dower the Income-tax with glad Bonanzas." 

So she ; and — since I loathe to disappoint 

The least illusion of the equal sex — 
Let Byron's oil once more these locks 
anoint, 
Once more let honour meet these Cox- 
drawn cheques . . . 
Though well I know that times are spare 
of joint, 
And satire's song less like to please than 
vex; 
Now small beer, Smallwood, raids and strikes 

and rations, 
Have near eclipsed the gaiety of nations : 
[42] 



Still, let me sing. Yet not as once I sung : 
Love, fear, and death have chastened, 
sobered, saddened, 
One who knew life's full burden-time too 
young; 
Whom never youth's unhampered free- 
dom gladdened, 
But only envy and ambition stung, 
And fickle passions — in love's semblance 
maddened ; 
So that he needs must tumble now, poor 

clown, 
On this Pindaric stage for half-a-crown : 

Yet one who, 'spite a past that shocked St. 
Tony 
And paid recording angels overtime, 
Still holds his own at sonnet or cazone. 
As some shall know who follow this, my 
rhyme — 
Some few : for gladly would I lay a pony, 
Or larger sum, against a ten-cent dime, 
That most of those who read this metred 

tract'll 
Not know a spondee from a pterodactyl. 



[43] 



II. 

Explains — a task few modern penmen 

shirk — 
The sociology of this great work. 

God bless Democracy, George Bernard 
Shaw, 
And William Dunn, our sanest, saintliest 
hatter ! 
God bless that great anomaly, the Law ; 
Aye, may our knights on hoarded tea 
wax fatter ! 
God bless Sir Arthur Yapp's unfailing jaw, 
Lord Lansdowne's pen, and brave Hora- 
tio's chatter! 
And — lest in England Bolos quite prevail — 
God bless King Northcliffe and his "Daily 
Mail !" 

Long live the old Press— "Times," "D. T.," 
"Spectator" ! 
Long live the New — "Age," "Europe," 
"Statesman," "Witness" ! 
Long live each acti temporis laudator! 
Long live Lloyd George in unmolested 
Pitt-ness ! 
Long live "The Nation," facile demonstra- 
tor 
Of everybody's — save its own — unfitness ! 

[44] 



Long live Valera, Carson, Devlin, Plunkett! 
Long live the lads who fight, the cads who 
funk it ! 

Long live our German banks, sub duce 
Plender ! 
Long may our railways rule our bound- 
ing sea ! 
Long may impatient Cuthberts paw their 
fender, 
What time their patient Phyllis pours 
their tea ! 
Long life to each investor and each spender ! 
Long live the Staff ! Long live the A.S.E. ! 
So long as England's in the melting-pot, 
A prudent bard must sing, "Long live the 
lot!" 

For who shall say — at close of Armaged- 
don, 
When the world's finished beggaring its 
neighbour, 
When the last shell's been fired, the last 
pig fed on — 
If we'll be ruled by Capital or Labour : 
If a Welsh harp shall twang part-songs of 
Seddon, 
While Simon pipes a compromising 
tabor : 

[45] 



Or whether every stalwart War-Loan-lend- 
er's son 

Will find his Empire dividends signed "Hen- 
son"? 

Not I : not all the better men who fought 
While dilutees preserved their precious 
skin: 
Not those great early dead, whose single 
thought 
Ran — "England : Germany : we've got to 
win." 
Poor simple souls, of H. G. Wells untaught, 
They never realized their next-of-kin 
Would read how they had died to make life 

cheerier 
For the dear blacks in Briningized Nigeria. 

Public, forgive your fool; if now and 
then — 
Black bubbles on the verse's stream — 
appear 

Thoughts of our worn, unlettered fighting- 
men; 
If sometimes, through the grease-paint's 
gay veneer, 

Truth shews — a wrinkled hag. The traitor 
pen 

[46] 



Forgets how blood is cheap and paper 
dear: 
And I'm no more the blithe, nut-loving 

squirrel 
Who frisked it in the consulship of Birrell. 

Which is, perchance, the reason why my 
mind 
Turns oft to those dear days, now dead 
as mutton ; 
When Haldane's soul with Bethmann-Holl- 
weg dined ; 
And no one ploughed up golf-greens, 
sown by Sutton, 
To bed the humble tuber's sprouting rind ; 
Or dashed off shorthand billets-doux in 
Dutton, 
Or changed a blear-eyed pauper to a swell 

man 
In six short weeks of concentrated Pelman : 

Why now— sad minstrel in un-Sandoned 
sack-cloth — 
I sing the twilight of the times I knew. 
No more our glaring footlights blurr a 
back-cloth 
Woven of misery and hung askew ; 
For Time, stern judge of Us, has donned 
his black cloth, 

[47] 



And to the Mob delivered up the Few . . . 
Unless, of course, the Mob's but swapped its 

Peers 
For a worse dynasty — of profiteers. 

God knows, we had our faults — greed, 
blindness, pride. 
God also knows we had a dashed good 
time. 
Were they the worse for that — our boys 
who died, 
By earth and air and sea in every clime ? 
God knows! But if ghost-feet still strut 
and side 
About their clubs, if ghost-eyes read this 
rhyme, 
I think they'd like their vanished epoch's 

swan-song 
To be a merry tune, and not a wan song. 
So clear the stage, and ring the curtain up ! 
Once more — ere Empires yield to 
Leagues of Nations, 
And bayonets to Socialistic gup — 

Let Beauty, in diaphanous creations, 
Ogle the stalls, and subsequently sup 
Off iced champagne and ortolan colla- 
tions . . . 

Whereafter, if my pen won't bring me pelf, 
Damned if I don't turn Socialist myself! 

[48] 



III. 

Sets forth, despite the Law's dull inter- 
ference, 

A lady's birth, age, family, and appear- 
ance. 

Arms have I sung full oft, both steel and 
white ones; 
Guns have I sung till I can sing no more ; 
Men have I sung, both common and polite 
ones : 
Yet never sang one heroine before. 
Come, then, my ghost-girls, dark, fair, 
plump, and slight ones, 
Come in the finest, flimsiest frocks ye 
wore. . . . 
Alas, not one of you quite fills the bill — 
A life-size model for my Lady Jill. 

Pardon, then, Magda, Gladys, Nancy, Flo- 
rence, 
Doris, Patricia, Mollie, Celandine, 
Nor hold your erstwhile suitor in abhor- 
rence 
Because, from one, he takes eyes subtly 
green ; 
From other, hands a Sargent or a Law- 
rence 

[49] 



Had envied for his canvas; here, the 
sheen 

Of gold hair, auburn-shot, in whose abun- 
dance, 

What time Jill dreamed, young Cupids 
watched the sun dance ; 

There a smooth throat, an arched, attrac- 
tive ankle, 
Soft cheek, curved back in bloom to 
close-set ear, 
Red mouth full-lipped, a voice whose love- 
tones rankle 
Still in this heart of mine, — a voice so 
dear 
That . . . But no more ! In fear this 
rhyming prank'll 
Offend some damozel whom I revere, 
I state: Jill's just an ordinary blonde, 
Fair, frail, flirtatious, rather fast than fond. 

You know the type — aristo-plutocratic, 
Out of blue blood by hard North Country 
cash; 
A self-assertive sire ; a dam, lymphatic 
(Since rarely strawberry leaves and 
sovereigns clash) ; 
Their sole son, daring in the diplomatic 
(Thumping his Underwood while king- 
doms crash) ; 

[50] 



Their daughter ... Is there a man alive 

can swear 
Exactly what she did or did not dare? 

For Jill was one of those astounding 
females, 
Born in a chaster, pre-Edwardian day; 
When lone Lucindas dared not dine nor tea 
males 
For dread lest scandal dub them "cory- 
phee" ; 
When none drank deep of D'Abernonian 
dream-ales, 
But quietly our Empire went its way, 
Nor realised that subalterns on horses 
Monopolized the brain-power of its Forces : 

One who was yet a span from flapperhood, 
Still puzzling o'er the simplest of equa- 
tions ; 
What time in robe of saffron Phoebus 
stood, 
And all our Lanes were gay with green 
carnations, 
And private hansoms sought the Johnian 
Wood, 
And the shrill cycle-bell's first tintilla- 
tions 
Resounded from the dawning to the dark 
In a Rolls-Royceless, Peter Panless Park : 

[51] 



One who attained the pig-tail's ribboned 
dowry, 
And helped to pass a Kipling tambou- 
rine, 
When first from lands of wattle, maple, 
Maori, 
Men came at summons of a dying Queen : 
One who, at Auteuil, Dresden, and Rath- 
gowrie, 
Acquired that polish reft of which, I 
ween, 
It is not possible for our Dianas 
To emulate a modern grande dame's manners : 

One on whose head the ostrich-feathers 
nodded 
In Alexandrine courts — and chez Bas- 
sano; 
In whose young ears, song's angels disem- 
bodied. 
Rang the last notes of Melbourne's own 
soprano ; 
Whose lithe feet, Moykoff-shod, the grouse- 
moors plodded, 
Or danced the new Machiche Brasiliano, 
In times before, unchaperoned of skinny ma, 
Suburbia's daughters sought the darkling 
kinema : 
To put the matter briefly — One of Them. 

[52] 



Bear witness, Muses Nine, how most un- 
worthy 
Is my gold nib to touch their garment's 
hem. 
Say, Byron (for as bard I still prefer 
thee 
To all whose pallid minor stars be-gem 
These Gotha nights) would not such task 
deter thee 
From the rhymed octave — sometime known 

as Whistlecraft — 
In which, poor ass, I ply this weekly thistle- 
craft? 

Of^jLotlthat I can never be a poet 

Modelled on spoon-fed college Adonaises, 
Whose metres reek of Porson, Jebb, and 
Jowett, 
Whose very thoughts derive from don- 
nish daises. 
Alas ! for us who, writing life, must know 
it- 
Its sights, its scents, its ladies, lords, and 
Laises. 
Alas ! for my refusal to disseminate — 
Even in verse — the scholarly-effeminate. 

And oh! ten thousand times alas, should 
Jill 
Be recognised in these Parnassian pages. 

[53] 



Woe for the libel action, and the bill 
Which he must face who in the law 
engages. 
And ah ! thank Heaven for a metric skill 
That shields this head from Justice Dar- 
ling's rages . . . 
Safeguarded by thy last experience, G. Moore, 
I maiden-name my lady — Lewis-Seymour. 



[54] 



IV. 

In which the author, contrary to custom, 
Goes for the gloves — as Sohrab went for 
Rustum. 

I have discovered, after much perusal 
Of Cannan, George Mackenzie, Walpole, 
Bennett, 
A Law whose discipline brooks no re- 
fusal, — • 
A neo-rheo-literary tenet 
Which runs : "In art, forbear to pick and 
choose. All 
That happens, happens. Wherefore, up 
and pen it ! 
Let the scribe's tale be casual and cursory ; 
End where you like — but start us in the 
nursery." 

And so I fain had traced, through many a 
canto, 
My heroine ; all dimples in her cot ; 
Bored with her lessons; laughing at the 
panto. ; 
Immersed in "Fauntleroy" or Walter 
Scott : 
But, since green herbs from memory's 
campo santo 

[55] 



Provide no flavouring for satire's pot, 
For seething, bubbling cauldron such as 

this is, 
I'll skip the skipping-rope and jump to kisses. 



'Tis such a night as only London knew 
In the full seasons of our heart's con- 
tent — 
When, like some fairy pageant in review, 
Love, Pleasure, Luxury together blent, 
Made life not all too boring for the Few ; 
And Unemployment, fix't at ten per 
cent., 
Furnished — by all means of charity ba- 
zaars — 
Right many a dame with perquisites and 
"pars." 

London, in London's June! Above, the 

starshine : 
Below, against the rails of Berkeley 

Square, 
The patient lights of brougham, or rarer 

car, shine — 
Waiting stiff-shirted squires and ladies 

fair : 
Music, from high French windows that 

afar shine, 

[56] 



Thrills, till a dancer well might curse 
and swear, 
And call himself a "dashed unlucky fella" 
To miss the Lewis-Seymour's Cinderella. 

Within those halls, where plush-breeched 
flunkeys stand, 
What sounds, what scents, what visions 
of delight! 
How — to the bluest Blue Hungarian 
band — 
Youth whirls away the unreturning 
night ! 
How — perfumed as the blooms of Samar- 
cand — 
The dying flow'rets whisper, "Carlton 
White!" 
But, oh ! to weary war-time ration-hunters, 
How like a dream, this stand-up supper — 
Gunter's ! 

For here, in reach of every slender hand 
which is 
Scarce languidly outstretched to porce- 
lain plate, 
Are dainties drawn from each vale, stream, 
or strand which is 
Most famed for fruit or fish or fowl or 
cate : 

[57] 



Creamed strawberries; thin, lavish-but- 
tered sandwiches 
Of livered geese (that now squawk 
Hymns of Hate), 
Of priceless hams and tongues and caviar; 

ices; 
And sugared sweets in myriad strange de- 
vices. . . . 

Yet sweeter far than all these sweet things, 
Jill is : 
Queen of my verse and this "Young Peo- 
ple's Dance" : 
Fairer than fairest of Mayf airy fillies ! 
Sweet, is the smile that lights a counte- 
nance 
Bright as moon-dappled, pink-tipped lotus- 
lilies ; 
Sweet, are her jade-green eyes that 
gleam and glance — 
And give no hint of yester-tea-time's flare-up 
When stern mamma forbade her bind her 
hair up. 

Jill's hair ! How beautiful it is ; the tresses 
Warm-golden, soft as cygnet's earliest 

downing. 
Jill's foot! How slim the arch the flounce 

caresses. 

[58] 



Jill's brow! How pure; how yet un- 
creased in frowning. 
(My Muse! How easily the jade im- 
presses 
On this ba a e coin a stamp of pseudo- 
Browning.) 
Jill's youth! Jill's dreams! These luxuries 

that lap her ! . . . 
Don't they present a most alluring flapper? 

So thinks, at least, this lad in evening rai- 
ment — 
Shoes, shirt-front, collar, waistcoat-but- 
tons, glowing; 
This sub. of other days — when soldier's 
payment 
Scarcely sufficed each monthly mess- 
bill's owing, 
And triple stars full fifteen years delay 
meant ; 
He, who presents the goblet, over-flowing 
With icy rubies to its crinkled brim, 
And asks if Jill won't "sit this out" with 
him. . . . 

And there it hangs, word-carven, my. last 
image. 
(Browning again! now Keats!) hap- 
less pair, 

[59] 



Loth lover and bold maiden of a dim age — 
Lost to us now, and dead, but still most 
fair. 
Attic shapes! Arcadian girlhood's slim 
age, 
And silken youth with brilliantined hair ! 
What climaxes must I not sacrifice, 
Who write this epic at a weekly price? 

For — as long melodies are sweet, but 
sweeter 
Poems in short instalments, such as 
mine — 
Seven full days, teased puppet of this 
metre, 
Must thy parched tongue await that 
roseate wine; 
Seven full nights, fond boy, must thou en- 
treat her; 
Whilst mantle to her cheeks, incarnadine, 
Youth's beauty, beauty's youth — and readers 

vex't 
Know, need know, nothing more till Tuesday 
next. 



[60] 



Brings life to week-old statues; makes 
them prance 

To love's light tune — and ends the Sey- 
mours' dance. 

Pale shapes I locked in memory's studio, 
Your draperies stir. From vein to mar- 
ble vein 
The life-blood leaps. Eyes gleam, and 
pulses glow. 
Once more my octaves rap their old re- 
frain 
To re-create the weekly puppet-show. 
Fond boy, to work! My Jill's herself 
again, 
And answers your entreaty — sideways glanc- 
ing— 
"Perhaps I will. It's jolly hot for dancing." 

So they twain pass — smart sub. and flap- 
per stately — 
From the high halls of Gunter's prank't 
refection. 

And out across the waxed boards, where 
lately 

[61] 



Twirled the swift waltz to La Poupee's 
"Selection." 
And on, past couples gossiping sedately ; 
And on, past couples screened against 
detection ; 
To a dim-shaded, fairy-lighted alcove, 
Fit haunt for single maid and single tall 
cove : — 

Such as — in land of Taj Mahal and mug- 
ger, 
Where girls book weeks ahead their sup- 
per dances — 
Screens some pale flirt, some lad who 
yearns to hug her, 
From the brown khitmatghar's averted 
glances. 
(Who knows thy secrets, darkling Kala- 
juggah — 
The orbs downcast, the fingers' coy ad- 
vances, 
The swiftly stifled sob that hooks the strip- 
ling — 
Save I, Victoria Cross, and Rudyard Kip- 
ling!) 

And there, beneath the new-sponged pot- 
ted palm-tree, 
[62] 



That mid-day brought and mornnig shall 
remove — 
Mayfair's own wind-unruffled, ever-calm 
tree, 
Whose drooping branches shield May- 
fairies* love — 
She lisps of Waller parts, and thy dead 
charm, Tree 
(Twin stars now shining in the "flies" 
above!) ; 
While he admits he has or hasn't seen 

them . . . 
Till a shy sudden silence falls between them, 
A cloud across the sun of lightling banter. 

Jill, my gold-spoon cake-and-Moet 
miss! 
Hast thou not dreamed, since thy first tam- 
o'-shanter, 
Of soldier boy, of dance-night such as 
this? 
Faintly they catch the polka's throb, the 
canter 
Of homing hansom-cab where lovers 
kiss: 
And "Oh," thinks he, "what eyes, what lips, 

what hair, too !" 
And "Oh," thinks she "the ninny doesn't dare 
to." 

[63] 



Voiceless, they sit: but now her eyes, up- 
turning, 
Seek his: and now, beneath the lashes' 
veil, 
Leaps a quick flame to set youth's pulses 
burning ; 
And now she feels her resolution fail : 
And now gains strength anew the curious 
yearning 
For love's adventure: now, her fingers 
frail 
Tighten about the kerchief's lacy tissue : 
And now, at last, he says, "Jill, I must kiss 
you." 

"Bobbie, you mustn't." "Jill — just one." 
Her shoulder 
Stiffens ; resists the half-encircling arm. 
Hands fend away the hand that seeks to 
hold her. 
Lips murmur. Lashes flutter in alarm. 
"No, Bobbie. No." My foolish boy, be 
bolder ; 
The moment's fear is half the moment's 
charm . . . 
Alas ! His missed and amateurish peck 
Grazes the ear-lobe ; lands upon the neck. 
[64] 



Readers, both kissed and kissless, chide 
not ; pity 
These withered fruits from Jill's dead 
seas of dreaming. 
Think — or in France, or in this barraged 
city, 
How many a dear one owes his brass 
hat's gleaming, 
How many a husband thanks his safe Com- 
mittee, 
To some fond woman's sound strategic 
scheming ! 
Ponder — can crafts which men from want to 

plenty ship, 
Be steered without an arduous apprentice- 
ship? 

Ponder ! Nor blame my Jill if she disguises 
Love's disappointment in disapprobation. 
If, Artemis in judgment now, she rises — 
The outraged goddess, armed for flagel- 
lation — 
And, with a voice whose every note com- 
prises 
Disgust, revolt, pain, virtue, indignation, 
Drives from her father's chaste, offended 

portals 
The meekest of apologising mortals. 
[65] 



And blame not me, her bard — whose verses 
weave her 
This coronal of memory's budding-hours, 
Who loved her long ago, yet now must 
leave her 
Lorn 'mid the dance's debris, and the 
flowers 
Which fade as day-dreams of that first 
deceiver — 
Because, while War yet ravens and de- 
vours, 
While still the blind guns thunder out in 

Flanders, 
I sing the type which cozens and philanders. 

For, young as Spring and old as Cleopatra, 
Certain as Nature's self, this type en- 
dureth : 
On Skindles' lawn, in jungles of Sumatra, 
She blooms — a wax-white weed that no 
rake cureth: 
From Westminster to wats of Pura Chatra, 
Her false lips smile, her gladsome optic 
lureth : 
WAAC's may be WREN's; wars, peace; to- 
day's full Colonel, 
To-morrow's clerk . . . but Jill is sempi- 
ternal. 



[66] 



VI. 



Continues — symptomatically terse — 
This first of serials in doggerel verse. 

O Jill, my peerless, perfumed, powdered 
darling ; 
Quintessence of all fairies I've adored 
In London's lanes, by Devon Budleigh's far 
ling, 
At Berkeley's, Kettner's, Ritz's, Carl- 
ton's board ; 
Jill whose white hands ne'er knew rough 
house-work's gnarling ; 
Whose clothes not twenty Coxes could 
afford ! 
How shall man sing the seasoned cee-sprung 

carriage 
In which you rolled from that first kiss to 
marriage ? 

What days they were! What noon-times 
and what twilights ! 
The whole wide earth seemed fashioned 
for your pleasure ; 
Its very heavens, gold-and-crystal skylights 

[67] 



Whereunder you picked orchid blooms at 
leisure. 
For others, shadowed gloom; for you, the 
high lights — 
The pomp, the pride, the dance's twang- 
ing measure . . . 
And if one begged : "Take coin," you'd say, 

"and toss it her. 
Poor thing! That skirt was never cut by 
Rossiter." 

Dear, rotten days ! And yet, a Jack grows 
wistful 
At thoughts of all the Jills whom he re- 
members, 
In times when he had boodle by the fist-full 
And fires of youth — where now are only 
embers. 

Jack's Jills ! Why, Muse possesses quite a 
list full, 
May's Jill, and June's Jill, August's, and 
September's . . . 
Yet dares no more than skim each light ad- 
venture 
Which followed on flirtationship's indenture. 



[68] 



For there's a tide in the affairs of flappers, 
Of those, at least, that West End 
mothers breed — 
(Your Wapping matron's more inclined to 
slap hers: 
A vulgar trick — yet one which serves 
some need!) — 
A spring-time blood-tide, mounting to 
young nappers, 
Heady as wine, a mischief-making mead, 
Which — though a man find every known ex- 
cuse for 'em — 
To put it mildly, does the very deuce for 'em. 

And shall my sweetest Muse, than whom 
none chaster 
E'er fluttered to console the middle-age- 
time 
Of any neurasthenic poetaster, 

Ope her full throat to sing Jill's 'prentice 
rage-time ? — 
The unnerving doubts, the certainties 
which braced her, 
The follied moments and the ensuing 
sage time, 
The major and the minor bards who sung to 

her, 
The men who knelt, the "little friends" who 
clung to her; 

[69] 



The last strange morning-dreams, the tea- 
tray's rattle, 
The letters — opened, skimmed, and 
tossed aside ; 
The leisured getting-up, the breakfast- 
prattle, 
The summoning 'phone-bell and the mid- 
day ride; 
The lunch ; the afternoons of tittle-tattle — 
Town's latest scandal, dance, divorce or 
bride ; 
The "dear boys," climbers, partis, portion- 
stalkers ; 
The furtive teas at Charbonnel and Walker's ; 

The Morny-scented bath before the dinner ; 
The deft maid's fingers in the unruly 
hair; 
The risque talk of some sweet social sinner, 
Half-heard across the table's candle- 
glare ; 
The Bridge, so much too high for a be- 
ginner; 
The Ball; the moment's whisper on the 
stair : 
The thousand faces, phases, thoughts, books, 

travellings, 
Which whirl youth's silk cocoon in its unrav- 
ellings. 

[70] 



Ah no! not ours with huckstering pen to 
retail 
How slumb'rous beauties wake from 
girl-time's dozing. 
Let Hubert Wales and D. H. Lawrence 
detail 
The purfled passion-blossom's slow un- 
closing. 
No rainbow's purple e'er shall tinge our 
she-tale, 
No censor's yoke restrain its swift com- 
posing. 
Moreover — quite apart from Muse's purity — 
There's nothing half so dull as immaturity. 

So please imagine — (though I know it's 
risky 
To trust in Britons for imagination, 
Save those rare few whom peace-time's 
hoarded whisky 
Still fires to spiritual exaltation, 
Or such as stand, when questioning House 
grows frisky, 
Pat on their first inspired assevera- 
tion) — 
Jill as she was in times of sugared plenty : 
The Bond Street goddess, setat three-and- 
twenty. 

[71] 



Goddess, indeed ! These meagre days that 
skimp us, 
Poor mortals, bullied, badged, and 
bombed and rationed, 
Scarce knows that breed which once on 
high Olympus 
Flaunted in radiant raiment, Poiret- 
fashioned. 
Goddess indeed! A self -sure, jade-eyed, 
slim puss — 
Of life's each latest luxury impassioned ; 
Sleek; mateless; restless; rampant; supple- 
sinewed ; 
Sharp-clawed; capricious; and . . . to be 
continued. 



[72] 



